


A Ship to Magnimar

by NebulousMistress



Category: Pathfinder (Roleplaying Game), Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen, RPG Session, Rise of the Runelords spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 14:09:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11807541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NebulousMistress/pseuds/NebulousMistress
Summary: It's Enforced Sunday and Dr. Rowan is running a game session. Zelenka can't roll higher than a 6 today and McKay's character has taken the brunt of it. A good GM has to be able to roll with the bad rolls.





	A Ship to Magnimar

**Author's Note:**

> So [Reaper Miniatures](http://www.reapermini.com/) is having another kickstarter to fund molds so they can make more miniatures. It inspired me again.
> 
> Contains some spoilers for _The Skinsaw Murders_ , second adventure in the _Rise of the Runelords_ adventure path. If your GM gets mad at you, tell them it's been out for 10 years now.

The midday sun did nothing to pierce the musty darkness of the ship's hold. The soft creaking and shifting of the waves beneath the bow were the only indicator that the sails held wind at all.

Ace held onto Mira's hand as the little globe of light near the lantern flickered ominously. _Dancing Lights_ was supposed to be a minor spell, something even apprentices could cast. But since two nights prior she hadn't been able to hold it in position and the soft globe drifted around the lantern in a lazy orbit that had nothing to do with intent and everything to do with the horrors of the Skinsaw Man.

Everything had been going so well. Someone was stalking Mira, sure, leaving weird notes and stealing her pretty scarves, but that all fell by the wayside when the murders began. Those same notes taunted her, taunted them all, invited them, almost **dared**  them to Foxglove Manor. The haunts of the mansion wore them down, tore at their sanity, but Cela's prayers and spells held them back.

Until the basement. The wretched basement. Nobody could have suspected Aldern Foxglove was the killer. Nobody could have suspected what he'd become.

The monster that was once a man, that had become the Skinsaw Man, tore into them. Mira's magic failed her when he attacked her, tearing at her with teeth and claws and weapon. The ghoul's paralyzing bite took movement from her, left her open to his savagery.

Until Charlie sank her daggers into the Skinsaw Man's back and distracted him.

In a manner of seconds Ace had the Skinsaw Man's head and Charlie was busy looting the corpse. Cela cast his healing magics on Mira and assured them all she would be fine.

That was four days ago.

She had been fine. She would be fine, dammit. Ace wiped a damp cloth over her feverish forehead, trying to ignore the long strands of fiery red hair that fell so easily from her scalp as he did. Cela would be able to fix it later. He could fix anything.

Anything but this, apparently. He had cast the spells necessary to cure deadly diseases but he was not strong enough to best this one. If only they'd noticed. If only Mira had said something. If only Magnimar wasn't so far from Sandpoint. If only...

If only...

Ace heard footsteps on the wooden stairs leading down from the deck. He looked back, hoping Cela had discovered some hidden wellspring of power or something. But no, it was Charlie.

“She's going to be all right,” Ace said stubbornly.

Charlie glanced up at the flickering orb of light. It stuttered and fell, drifting down like blood poured into water before dimly reforming underneath the lantern. “Captain Anderson said we'll make port by morning,” she said. “You need to eat something.”

“It can wait,” Ace said.

“No, it can't,” Charlie said. “I'll watch her. Go get something to eat before Cela casts a _Sleep_ spell on you.”

Ace sighed and gave Mira's hand a squeeze before laying it on her chest. She groaned pitifully in fever dreams and grew quiet. “I'll be back soon,” he told her. Then he turned to Charlie. “Tell me if anything changes.”

“Of course,” Charlie said.

Ace left. Charlie waited until he was gone before she turned to Mira. The _Dancing Lights_ spell flickered and dimmed.

*****

“Roll your Fort save.”

Dr. Rowan from chemistry sat at the head of the table. Before him an open grid map held several small figurines of heroes standing idle. Around him were the game's players.

Dr. McKay picked up the dice and scowled. “If I lose more than one CON I'm dead,” he said.

“Then roll a one,” Sheppard drawled.

“I do it all the time,” Dr. Zelenka said sarcastically. Next to him Colonel Carter snorted then pretended she wasn't about to laugh.

The game room bustled with activity on this Enforced Sunday. Dr. Tomson sat in the back of the room painting more tiny figurines, a trio of marines were arguing over a game of Risk, a group in the back played poker and absolutely were not betting with jelly beans. Several scientists were arguing over a wargame, the rules they argued over must have been custom as nobody had ever heard of successfully rolling 'an unmodified 11 on a 10-sided die' before.

Dr. Rowan's Pathfinder game was going rather well, if he did say so. Players came and went depending on the circumstances, postings, adventures, and, well, and untimely deaths. Still, the game's story continued. The overarching plot was the standard 'stop the evil wizard, save the world'. But right now McKay's character was one bad roll away from death and...

McKay held out the dice and pointed to each one. “DEX, CON,” he said, assigning them based on color. Then he rolled.

And swore.

“I'm dead,” he said before huffing and scowling.

“You took all the ones he needed,” Carter said, nudging Zelenka.

“He could have had them,” Zelenka said. “All he had to do was ask.”

“I don't think it works that way,” Sheppard said.

Rowan stood up and pointed at McKay. “You, come with me,” he said.

McKay followed Rowan to a corner of the room. “That sucked,” he whined.

“That did suck,” Rowan agreed. He looked around before whispering conspiratorially. “But it doesn't have to.”

“What?”

“You died from ghoul fever,” Rowan said. “You know what happens to people who die from ghoul fever.”

“No...”

Rowan grinned. Then he shouted back to the table. “Radek! Roll a Knowledge Religion check for me!”

There was the sound of dice rolling and then swearing in Czech. “He rolled a 2!” Carter shouted.

“Well, Cela doesn't know either. Someone roll McKay's Knowledge Religion!”

Sheppard picked up McKay's dice and rolled. “Seventeen,” he called.

Rowan looked back at McKay and grinned. McKay did not like that grin.

“People who die of ghoul fever awaken the next midnight as ghouls,” he said, voice low so only McKay could hear. “Mira knows this. Too bad she hasn't been in any shape to say anything. And now, well...”

“Great, so I'm going to try and eat the others,” McKay grumbled.

“Not so fast. Ghouls don't always retain their memories but when they do...”

“Wait... You're going to let me keep playing? This isn't just because I'm your boss, is it?”

Rowan thought back to the previous two weeks of hearing about McKay's character and how he'd never played anything like this, D&D required friends willing to play and he'd never, well... “Partially,” Rowan admitted. “Ghouls retain their sentience but they're supposed to lose all their memories. Obviously that didn't work on Foxglove and you got bit by him so why not use that?”

“Okay,” McKay said. He seemed to accept it.

“Or you could make a new character,” Rowan offered. “Magnimar's a big city...”

“I said it's fine,” McKay said.

“All right,” Rowan said. Then they rejoined the table.

*****

Ace sat on the deck of the ship facing the rising moon. Pale light glinted off of the sea, white and sharp against the night's blackness. His elven eyes could pick out all the stars from the sky, the white peaks of choppy waves, the bright colors of the silk scarf he held. Its esoteric patterns glinted silver against the blues and purples of the silk. Sewn into the seams were hidden gems kept for emergencies. Spell components, bribes, the occasional massive bar tab, these gems could get them out of any jam.

Except this one.

Ace didn't blame Cela even though he wanted to. The Skinsaw Man was a horror the likes of which they'd never faced before. How could they have known when they rescued Foxglove from those goblins last month that he'd grow obsessed with Mira and try to drag her with him into death? Perhaps they should have let him die...

Ace's ear twitched as he heard approaching footsteps. He didn't look up, he recognized Cela's slight limp.

“Hmm,” Ace hummed in greeting as Cela sat down next to him.

“I am sorry,” Cela said. “I could do... nothing.”

“At least it's over,” Ace said. He made to toss the scarf overboard but... he couldn't do it.

“Her killer is already dead,” Cela said bitterly. “I cannot even take vengeance for her.”

Ace turned his head to look at Cela. The cleric wore his full vestments, armor left below in his bunk. The yellow and black stripes marked his god, marked his devotion to Calistra. The elven god of vengeance.

And the god of prostitutes. Ace never could figure that one out.

“He did not work alone,” Cela said, staring out over the sea. “He had orders from another. I can avenge her death by killing those who sent him.”

Ace sighed. He'd never trusted divine magic. It always seemed wrapped up in the god's whims. This was just one more capricious example. The god of vengeance demanded blood and now Cela had an opportunity to shed that blood. It would have been fine except...

Ace really liked Mira. She was fun, for a human. She had a good sense of humor, a decent sense of comic timing, no idea how attractive she was, and she was really good at blowing stuff up. He'd miss that. He'd miss all of it. “We'll need a wizard,” he said.

“Plenty in Magnimar,” Cela said. Then he brightened up. “Magnimar is large enough city, perhaps... no... we do not have money to raise her from the dead.” He slumped back into staring out over the waves.

Ace fingered the gems in the scarf. There weren't enough, not enough for something like this. He stood up and held the scarf over the ship's railing.

He couldn't do it.

He wrapped the scarf around his neck and sat back down.

“She will be avenged, my friend.”

Ace was not comforted.

*****

Charlie sat in the ship's mess as the cook finished cleaning for the night. Her knives were all laid out on the table as she sharpened each one in turn.

Mira was dead, killed by the Skinsaw Man. Not directly, though, not in any civilized way. Not by blade or bond. This was by a disease. Ghoul fever, Mira had called it, whimpered it in her delirium before the fever took her. Before the dimming globe of her final spell dripped out of the air and splashed onto the deck, shattering into a thousand glimmers of light that all faded away.

And then the hold had been plunged into darkness and a single rattling breath. By the time Charlie got a lantern lit there wasn't anything she could do. Mira's breath no longer fogged a glass. There wasn't any breath left to do the fogging.

And now she lay in the cargo hold. Cela's doing. Captain Anderson would rather she be buried at sea, tossed overboard for the sharks and the sahuagin. Cela argued she be brought to the temple of Nethys in Magnimar. She was a wizard, surely her soul would appreciate that much consideration before vengeance was taken against those who robbed her of her life.

Personally, Charlie agreed with Captain Anderson. But not because of any simple sailor's superstition. Not because death attracts rats. But because she knew what ghoul fever **did**.

They were all in danger.

*****

Mira opened her eyes.

The first thing she noticed was the hunger. The fever was still there then, the gnawing oppressive hunger that made it hard to think even as she felt cold, so cold. But the cold was gone, never there, never meant anything. Still stiff, still shaking off the fever then. But hungry, so incredibly hungry. It was like her insides had been replaced by some expression of emptiness, a Sphere of Annihilation inside her sucking away everything starting with her stomach.

Her hands went to her belly, trying to quell the pain from the outside. But there was nothing she could do about it here.

Okay. Step one, get food. Then she could find the others. The deck still rocked, the ropes still creaked, she was still on the boat. But how did it get so bright down here? She could see clear as any day. Were the very walls themselves glowing with inner fire? What magic was this?

Mira called up _Dancing Lights_ , one of the few spells she still had prepared. Step two, find her spellbook. She needed to study the arcane symbols within to regain her mastery of the forces of magic.

But something was wrong here. _Dancing Lights_ did not make the room brighter, it added color. Browns and reds and yellows to the wooden crates and the hull's planks. Dull bronze to the lantern hung above her. Blues and purples and reds and pinks and more to her scarves and clothing. But her hand... when did she grow so pale?

Must be the fever.

She dismissed the spell. The hold stayed visible even as color drained away.

What...

What was...

 **Oh**...

Mira looked down at her hands, her claws, in horrified fascination.

What was she going to do now?

*****

Ace trudged down to the hold. He was against sleeping anywhere near a dead body on principle, especially somebody he knew, but he was also against sleeping on the deck and rolling into the ocean. He'd sleep later, then, but he might as well spend the rest of the night in the hold. He didn't think he could stomach the sight of Magnimar in the sunrise, not after they worked so hard to rush down the coast and...

And they failed. They weren't fast enough.

He found Charlie in the mess still sharpening knives. He sat down at the table near her and let his head fall to the bare planks.

“Haven't heard anything yet,” Charlie said. “Maybe she'll be safe.”

Ace turned his head to give her a questioning glare.

“She died of ghoul fever,” Charlie said. “Good chance she'll wake up tonight.”

“Wake... up?” Ace asked.

“Sure,” she said. “Cela must've told you about it. If she wakes up as a ghoul we might have to put her right back down when she tries to eat us.”

If she wakes up.

If she...

Ace got up and ran toward the hold.

“Bad idea!” Charlie shouted after him.

Ace found the door to the cargo hold and threw it open and--

A pair of shining red eyes looked up at him. Sharp teeth bared as a low hiss like a serpent's rose from the horrible scene before him.

And then the vision broke.

“Do you mind?!” Mira demanded. She sat on the bunk she'd died on, her spellbook in her lap as she studied to regain her power.

Ace fell to his knees in the doorway. “Mira?” he asked.

“Yes, yes, I'm... well, I don't think I'm **fine** per say but I'm up,” Mira said. “Do you have any idea why Charlie had my spellbook in her pack? I told her explicitly that if I die she's not getting it. There are complex arcane notes in here on discoveries I haven't even begun to make and I won't have them sold to the highest bidder just so she can buy more knives.”

She was dead. That much was apparent, from her shining red eyes to her pale bloodless skin to her gaunt diseased frame. But there was more. Those long claws that somehow turned the leaves of her spellbook with such a delicate touch. The haphazardly pointed teeth that didn't match anything human or elven or even orcish. The pointed ears that looked like a mockery of elven beauty sculpted in wax. The complete lack of hair.

Her beautiful red hair, reduced to shed strands strewn about the bunk and the floor and her own clothes.

“You're undead,” Ace whispered.

Mira sighed and closed her spellbook. “I think so,” she admitted.

Terror gripped Ace but he tamped it down. This was still the Mira who drank with him in the tavern, who zapped targets with him in the fields, who got all his jokes, who rolled her eyes with him at Cela's unwavering faith in his intermittent powers. Who hid gems in her scarves and wore too many skirts to be practical. Who still danced the dizzy lightfooted dances she learned as a child in the caravans when she thought no one was looking.

“Are you...” Ace couldn't voice his question. There were too many words to fit. He didn't know which ones were important. He almost ran away when she got up and came toward him. He almost stayed still. He almost many things.

Her claws were gentle against his hair. “I'm still me,” she said. “Though I am starving. Do you think the cook has anything I can usurp?”

Ace laughed and leaned into her. She was dead, yes, but she would be fine.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a [tumblr](http://nebulousmistress.tumblr.com/) where you can find a hundred little fanfics I never posted here. Check it out, drop a line, maybe dare me to write something for you.
> 
> As you can see I'm inspired by some strange things.  
> Mira (human wizard, ghoul wizard by the end) played by Rodney McKay  
> Ace (elven fighter) played by John Sheppard (no unresolved slash there, nooooone at all :P  
> Cela (half elven cleric) played by Radek Zelenka  
> Charlie (human rogue) played by Sam Carter  
> They were all level 5 at the time of this adventure.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [It's (Not) Just a Game](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11840946) by [NebulousMistress](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NebulousMistress/pseuds/NebulousMistress)




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